Member-only story

Unsolved (A Tragic Double Murder in The Bay Area)

Michelle Renee Kidwell
2 min readMay 16, 2022
C.C.O image Pixabay

Ten years ago my life was forever changed.

In February of 97 two of our lifelong family friends were murdered in their home in Hercules California.

The case got national attention, because double murders excecution style are just not all that common in a small California town called Hercules and ten years later the killers still have not been found. One website creator had this to say after a decade of trying to find answers on a question that all who knew Neal and Brendan Abernathy ask themselves.

Who kills a twelve year old boy? And a man who would give you the shirt of his back?

Living without answers to little questions comes naturally to those who remember Neal and Brendan. They know for certain only that father and son are gone, shot dead in their Hercules home 10 years ago, for who knows what or why.

“It seriously makes no sense,” said Jon Abernathy, Neal’s older brother. “There was really nothing to profit from their deaths.” Police view the killings with similar dissatisfaction. The crime shocked Hercules, a quiet Contra Costa suburb, in 1997. But despite amassing 600 pages of police reports, investigators fell well short of solving the town’s most notorious killings.

--

--

Michelle Renee Kidwell
Michelle Renee Kidwell

Written by Michelle Renee Kidwell

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge in the light: Helen Keller http://www.facebook.com/fansofMichellerkidwell

Responses (3)